Annan declares Iraq war illegal and warns of election
credibility
By Colin Brown and Patrick Cockburn
16 September 2004
Tony Blair last night
suffered a fresh blow after Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary
General, said the war in Iraq was "illegal".
Speaking on the BBC World Service, Mr Annan said the war was "not
in conformity" with the UN Security Council or with the UN
Charter.
Asked if there was legal authority for the war on Iraq, Mr Annan
said: "I have stated clearly that it was not in conformity with
the security council, with the UN charter."
He also said there could not be credible elections in Iraq next
January if the current unrest continued.
His remarks are certain to provoke demands by anti-war Labour
MPs at Westminster today for a statement by the Attorney
General, Lord Goldsmith. The UN weapons inspection team, led by
Hans Blix, found little evidence of weapons of mass destruction,
but this is the first time that Mr Annan has been so outspoken
in his criticism of the grounds for going to war.
The Foreign Office last night sought to play down Mr Annan's
comments, saying: "The Attorney General made the Government's
position on the legal basis about the use of military force
clear at the time."
However, both Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, and
Clare Short, the ex-Secretary of State for International
Development, resigned from the Cabinet over the war, challenged
the legality of the war and Lord Goldsmith's ruling.
There has been continuing doubt about the legality of the war.
Ms Short has claimed that the chiefs of staff of the armed
forces were reluctant to go to war until Lord Goldsmith gave a
ruling on the eve of battle that there was legal justification
for the war.
Lord Goldsmith argued that the threat from weapons of mass
destruction was one of the reasons for justifying action under
UN resolution 1441. However, the Iraq Survey Group is expected
to confirm that no evidence of WMD has been found.
Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the number two in the Foreign Office legal
team, resigned in protest at the case for attacking Iraq in a
pre-emptive strike, a week before the war began. It has also
been claimed that the Foreign Office fears that its legal
justification for the war on Iraq could be open to legal
challenge as a result of the ruling in the International Court
of Justice against the construction of Israel's security wall.
Mr Annan's question over the Iraq elections could prove more
damaging for the US and the UK alliance
The Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told a private meeting of
Labour MPs this week that the purpose of the attacks by
insurgents in Iraq was to prevent elections taking place. He
said the stakes were high because a peaceful democratic Iraq
would be a model for the Middle East.
Mr Annan said last month that UN staff returning to Iraq after
two suicide bomb attacks last October would have to rely on
US-led multinational forces for their protection. The small team
led by Ashraf Jehangir Qazi of Pakistan is due to arrive in
Baghdad on 22 September with the UN election team.
Mr Straw told the MPs attempts were made to get
non-multinational force countries to provide security for the
team but, apart from Canada, that was unsuccessful. Mr Straw
said the failure to close the borders to insurgents after the
war was the major failing of the post war period.
Meanwhile, the US sought yesterday to defend the two helicopter
pilots who fired seven rockets into a crowd in Baghdad on
Sunday, killing 13 people and wounding 41, saying they had come
under "well-aimed ground fire". This is different from the first
statement by the US military claiming that they opened fire with
rockets to prevent a Bradley fighting vehicle which had been hit
by a bomb from being looted of arms and ammunition.
The US account of the incident in which Mazen al-Tomeizi, a
Palestinian television producer working for al-Arabiya satellite
channel was killed, was contradicted by the film taken by his
cameraman at the moment the rocket struck. There is no sound of
firing from the crowd in the moments before the helicopters
attacked.
The US military's accounts of incidents in which it claims to
have targeted insurgents but only civilians have died are
frequently discredited by Arab television pictures of the
incident, which US officers apparently do not watch before
issuing statements. At the weekend the US claimed to have hit
insurgents in a precision raid in Fallujah while Iraqis were
watching pictures on television of an ambulance attacked from
the air in which a driver, a paramedic and five patients died.
The war in Iraq continues to intensify, with a sharp increase in
the overall death rate. Three headless bodies were discovered
yesterday on a road north of Baghdad and appeared from tattoos
to be Iraqis whose hands were tied behind their backs.
While insurgents have often beheaded foreign hostages in their
fight against the government and coalition forces, it is not a
tactic usually used against Iraqis.
In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, there was an upsurge of fighting in
which 10 people were killed, including two women.
Meanwhile, the US has dashed Iraqi hopes that money would at
last be invested in the country's crumbling infrastructure and
no longer spent on arms and security services as under Saddam
Hussein. The State Department has announced that it is switching
$3.4bn of US funds from water and power projects. Most of the
money will be reallocated to boosting security and oil output.
Iraqis had expected that 18 months after the invasion they would
get continuous electricity supplies. Instead, many districts in
Baghdad get only 14 hours a day. Polluted water is one of the
chief killers of children but even in an important city such as
Basra only 18 per cent of the supply is clean.
Marc Grossman, the US under-secretary of state for political
affairs, said earlier in the week that $1.8bn of the diverted
money would go to recruit 35,000 Iraqi police officers, 16,000
border guards and 20 Iraqi national guard brigades.
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